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Thursday, 23 July 2020 _Following the publication of the Russia report there is growing clamor in the British political establishment for a new espionage law that takes stock of both actual and potential national security threats.
Home Office Minister, James Brokenshire, has proposed an American-style register of “foreign agents” in the UK as part of a broader strategy of containing the threat from foreign spies and agents of influence.
Brokenshire told the House of Commons that the proposed register and additional “new offences and powers” for dealing with hostile intelligence services were being considered.
Brokenshire’s apparent agreement with the Intelligence and Security Committee (which produced the Russia report) on the need for a new Espionage Act is likely to attract cross-party support.
The Labor party leader, Keir Starmer, has already indicated his support for additional powers by accusing the government of “complacency” and leaving a “serious gap in our defenses”.
Currently the UK’s main judicial weapon against espionage is the Official Secrets Act (OSA), which was first enacted in 1911 prior to the outbreak of the First World War, and which was subsequently amended 1989.
The OSA is sometimes considered to be deficient as it can only be used in prosecutions where the suspected spy has acquired secret and classified information with a view to transmitting it to a foreign intelligence service.
But in recent years the UK has adopted a raft of formal and informal measures to deal with a wide range of national security threats, notably espionage and terrorism.
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